If you saw this parent on a train?

[rocknrollaa]

On the train today, I saw a mother with 3 kids was really losing her temper with them. The kids were just being kids - talking quite loudly, getting out of their seats sometimes - nothing bad, just a bit excitable.

But mum was really telling them off - for the whole journey of about half an hour, all you could hear from her were loud angry commands to sit down, shut up, threats that they are not going to go trick or treating, etc. She didn't say a single thing to them that wasn't a command or telling them off, and her voice was loud and angry.

At one point the eldest, probably about 8/9, got very upset with her mum who told her she couldn't go trick or treating.

The child was crying, she said ' I was just starting to feel happy again and then you told me off again'. Mum replied loudly 'Stop being naughty then. Why the bloody hell are you only happy when you're bad?! I SWEAR DOWN you're not going trick or treating tonight', then the kid started crying.

We didn't intervene but we felt really sorry for these kids. It was serious shouting and they really weren't misbehaving much at all.

It got me thinking what I would do if I actually saw her hit one of the kids (because I felt like she was on the verge of it, but didn't).

Would you intervene? If so how?

YABU - No I wouldn't intervene - it's her business how she parents her kids.
YANBU - Yes I would intervene (please comment what you'd do)

You say they werent misbehaving but my 4 year old knows better than to get up and down and be loud and has behaved better on long haul flights.

Even if she was a shit mum, instead of sitting there silently wringing your hands and doing a virtue signalling mumsnet post, you could have chatted to the kids to make their day better and relieve the pressure all round.

Not to derail but actually there's lots of evidence we're pretty violent, even if not quite as likely to fight with our own sex as men are.

Quite. It's just like "you're more likely to be abused by someone you know" being used as an excuse to pretend that strangers aren't a danger (for example in the context of men in women's spaces). It may be technically true, but it's almost guaranteed that the reason for the seemingly counter-intuitive figures is opportunity, and that those statistics shouldn't be a reason for extending opportunity further. But I digress.

Strictly speaking only women commit infanticide.

Normally I take card games and jigsaws and we have good trips on the train but on the odd occasion where everyone is tired, kids behaviour has been challenging through the day & I’m stressed I will get to a point where I issue threats and back myself into a bit of a corner. We can all have days where we just get it wrong and don’t parent very well and are kicking ourselves afterwards. It may just have been that but no real way to know. If I see someone else struggling I might chat to them and if they were with me and I was playing a card game or something with the kids I might ask the other family if they wanted to join us. I wouldn’t question/criticise someone being very authoritarian though. If it was just stress it would make them feel even worse than they already did & if they felt it was fine it would make them defensive.

I've been there and if anyone had intervened it wouldn't have gone well. Most of the time its fine but stress, tiredness and irritation cause tempers to flare easily.

This mum was probably frazzled but you can comment quietly and in turn calm dc with your manner . They need to know there are consequences to bad behaviour

I have noticed that some mums and dads have a loud running commentary both when the kids are being naughty but also just generally. As if they are advertising that they have kids and what they say to them must be loud and non stop, no matter how mundane. I have to say they are always a certain type, but will get shot down if I describe them as an underclass. Also swearing at dc and threatening them. I honestly never heard parents doing it when I was young in public, kids behaved better.

Ladythatlaunches, so women are pretty violent? what I can't get my head around when it comes to dv, is the size discrepancy between men and women, men have the upper hand surely

Yes, women are more likely to get injured according to the stats.

My general understanding is that:

• The most common pattern is bi-directional violence.
• Vast majority of studies show that women and men are actually very close in perpetrating levels but women get injured more often.
• A fair few show that non-reciprocal violence is mostly committed by women. Same with incidents where a single blow is struck.
• Men massively under report which is likely why crime stats tell one story yet meta reviewing 1700 peer reviewed studies tells another.

Men are conditioned not to hit women ("boys don't hit girls") and also not to show emotion ("boys don't cry") whilst hitting men is a comedy trope in films. People would be aghast if the male lead of a film smacked a woman around the face hard, but the reverse is totally socially acceptable.

I'm not 'rooting for men' or whatever th.e term is. It's just clear that most women have a completely unrealistic view of violence

If you are going to summarise from a Wikipedia article at least don't skip some key points, such as:
male violence is a more serious phenomenon, primarily, but not exclusively, because male violence tends to inflict more psychological and physical damage than female violence

Male violence produces injury at roughly six times the rate of female violence

Women are also more likely to be killed by their male partners than the reverse (according to the US Department of Justice, 84% of spousal murder victims are female).

I think if I'd have said anything to her that implied she might need help, she would have shouted a lot of abuse at me.

Thanks for this post, this was exactly the kind of situation - concerning and disturbing, but not anything that the authorities would do anything about. I had exactly the same dilemma as you. I wanted to post here to see what a member of the public might do to intervene, if anything, because it feels like an impossible situation - you can see that things aren't OK but there's nothing you can really do.

Some people have suggested joining in I Spy with the kids, which I think would have been good idea. She couldn't be angry with me for playing I Spy and would have been difficult for her to shout at kids when I was engaging with them.

So perhaps somehow engaging with the children in a light/ fun way is the answer, just to make that short time a bit easier.

Or maybe over-emotional and hypersensitive to her mother's criticism because she never gets any praise.

Emotional lability in children can be a sign of domestic abuse.

Not NW England, no.

I know what you mean though. I've worked in schools and other environments with children and young people for my entire career, so I do have a bit of a spidey sense. My opinion is there was very likely more going on.

Fair enough. My apologies.

Doesn’t negate @LadyThatLaunches’ stupidly irrelevant “observation”, either way.

Yes. I dislike the word 'chav'.

Tbh maybe the op is right and something is off there particularly if the children were being well behaved.
I have to laugh though as every time France is mentioned on here and how well kids behave there it’s because of this type of parenting !! I’ve spent years in France and my dh grew up there and this is standard when out and about in how they treat their children , I genuinely see it a lot tbh ... So when I visit with the three kids and they can’t sit down for long (which they absolutely couldn’t when smaller etc ) I got stares and tuts (obviously getting better as they are older but I think it’s absolutely normal for young children to find it hard to sit for long periods and be absolutely quiet) so it was stressful and awful for us tbh . I think parents can’t win tbh , I wasn’t into plugging small kids into screens for hours (I don’t care what others do , it made my kids agitated and fighting if on screens too much ) , we always brought snacks and little games , toys etc but honestly with three really high energy boys I found it hard and exhausting travelling. They aren’t naturally quiet or easy going and we are firm and consistent blah blah and still they were like agitated a lot when smaller , bolting in train stations, airports etc so I definitely was and am frazzled tbh . We also never have any help from anyone so zero family support even when visiting people so we are always “on”.
I give way less of a shit now and i always try and distract little ones if I see another parent stressed out of their heads . You only have to look at the judgy posts here , judged for using technology to keep kids quiet, kids are zombies , kids can’t sit still (no shit like , loads of children can’t -go look at young primates in zoos) .
It’s hilarious though re the French kids and parents and how well they do it , their schools are like walking into Irish schools 50 years ago and their parenting is em… harsh.. this is what I’ve seen time, time again but they are hailed as being amazing and their kids so quiet …. Wonder why!
We don’t know the story , this woman could be abusive but probably is being overall unsupported and is burnt out . Society doesn’t help so much , there’s very little supports out there .

Really? Care to give an example?

I've been in some situations where there was a man being intimidating in public and mouthing off, I wouldn't give a toss if someone socked him one, I'd think he deserved it, certainly wouldn't report it.

There's this woman round our way always screaming and shouting drunk in the early hours of the morning outside the houses, making a right racket and waking everyone up, if another woman slapped her, I'd ignore it.

Thinking about it, there was an altercation outside my house last year, two neighbours to the side of me having an argument outside on the driveway about building work, raised voices, choice words, then a smack. Ignored it, he can report it if he feels he wants to.

Lady that Launches, rewinding back to your earlier post with the stats - it may be a controversial opinion, but I believe strongly that the root causes of female violence are very different to male violence (ditto, if you compare women in jail to men in jail)

Of course, as you say, there are women who'd head butt you in a pub but this is rare. Most cases, particularly violence towards their own children, it's frazzled mothers, shouldering society's burdens with little or no support. In fact worse than no support is the outright contempt society so often shows towards mothers, especially those who struggle. On top of the struggle and daily pressure, then, there's also shame. It's a toxic combination and as I say, when something gives, it's the kids who suffer.

Really it should be a national scandal. The last thing I want is for mother's to be demonised but perhaps if we were more aware of these figures, more would be done. I believe with the proper support, these figures could be dramatically reduced. But no-one really cares. We'll go on pointing the finger at individual women who are doing mostly their best even when that isn't actually very good. Charities and public bodies will go on creating jobs and salaries for themselves with not much more than a nod to those who need their help. (I've worked in the sector - I know)

Thanks for the thought provoking discussion.

The poor mum sounds at the end of her tether. I would try and make conversation, perhaps in a jokey manner about how difficult children can be. If I saw her hit them then yes, I would intervene.

I think we have to be very careful - there is a big push to see women as just as violent as men in DV and it’s extremely controversial. Read this from Women’s Aid

Myth #8: Women are just as abusive as men.
Reality: In the vast majority of cases, domestic abuse is experienced by women and perpetrated by men. A woman is killed by her male partner or former partner every four days in the UK England and Wales. In the year ending March 2019, the majority of defendants in domestic abuse-related prosecutions were men (92%), and the majority of victims were female (75%) (in 10% of cases the sex of the victim was not recorded) (ONS, 2019). It is a gendered crime which is deeply rooted in the societal inequality between women and men.
Women are more likely than men to experience multiple incidents of abuse, different types of domestic abuse, and sexual violence particularly.

From Women’s Aid UK
https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/myths/#:~:text=Reality%3A%20There%20is%20no%20research,are%20attracted%20to%20abusive%20men.

That is not to say that women are not abusive, of course it can happen. And their victims should be protected. I fully support any groups which get men to come forward or to protect children.

But the available actual data we have is that women are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators, and that some misogynistic groups are heavily pushing the agenda, and this is often seen from abusive men - they will paint themselves as a victim. As that wikipaedia article that @LadyThatLaunches points to - it’s mostly if anyone reads it warning about the controversy and complexity. It does not conclude that @LadyThatLaunches concludes that is a misrepresentation. It does say that men are less likely to report, but that does not automatically prove that DV is equal.

I have a 'friend' who is VERY like this with her children. I find it insanely uncomfortable and so do my children. We've had to deal with it by seeing less of them, I cant change her behaviour and I've never seen her hit them, but I would not be at all surprised if she has. She's had social services called on her by other people in the past and it hasn't amounted to anything/changed her behaviour in any way, so I feel a bit powerless to do anything, so have had to slowly remove myself from the situation.

Obviously that's not really the same as seeing a stranger on the train, but I do think theres very little in reality that would help in that situation, have to just hope she was having a bad day 😔

Shame the post was deleted. It’s always useful to show what people really think of those they consider beneath them.